By Norah McLaughlin | FāVS News Reporter
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church believes its Greek food festival is the longest-running in the country, with nearly nine decades of community celebration. The church will host its 89th annual Greek Fest Sept. 25-27 in Spokane.
“This is always a favorite time of the year,” said the Rev. Daniel Triant, the presiding priest of the church. “There is always a lot of energy in the parish and beyond, so it’s a great way to start the fall for us.”
The festival began as a dinner in the basement of the original hall as early as 1929, Triant said. In the late 1970’s, the parish grew and this celebration went from a dinner to a festival.
“It’s just a wonderful way to gather, celebrate and work together. To offer hospitality and food, the thing that we love to do to everyone,” he said.
There will be a variety of traditional Greek foods available for purchase throughout this event, including gyros, baklava and loukoumades, which are fried dough balls.
Triant highlighted the pastitsio, one of the more recent additions to the festival menu. He described it as a “Greek lasagna” filled with spices, ground beef, noodles and topped with a crème sauce.
“I could eat too many plates of those,” said Triant. “Certainly, my favorite.”
Besides the food, church tours will be offered for people to learn about the Greek Orthodox church’s history, as well as about architecture and design of the church itself, according to a press release.
“It is a beautiful building,” said Triant. “It really is an amazing and unique building,”
These tours will be held at 12:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. daily.
The entertainment for this festival is the dance troupe the Opa Dancers, which is made up of children ages 6 to 18.
“Our dance troupe… does an amazing job of learning these dances and bringing different parts of Greece right here to Spokane,” said Triant.
There is no entry fee to the festival. Part of the proceeds made from food sales will go to Caritas Outreach Ministries, a local food bank in Spokane.
“We wanted to offer something in the community in the mission of the church,” said Triant. “In one of the ways we do that is to feed the hungry.”
The festival will be held Sept. 25-27 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 1703 North Washington St. Spokane.
“This is a place where you don’t just come to eat some food and go away,” said Triant. “But you come and stay and enjoy the music, enjoy the dancing, enjoy friends, old friends and meeting new people.”
